From Trunk-Sold Vintage Tees to the Paris Fashion Week Runway: diamond* Tears the ØWAY Story Out of a Grateful Dead T-Shirt
YSL's go-to rap duo diamond* and Tezzus have brought the Atlanta label ØWAY all the way to Paris Fashion Week. This interview starts with a vintage tee that got torn apart on the spot — and works backward to how they got here.
Back in 2020, diamond* was running vintage tees out of his trunk, pricing each one on the spot. That August, he was pulling in $150 a day, with customers coming from whoever happened to wander into the skatepark. One buyer paid $60 for a Grateful Dead tee, threw it on, and the second the music hit, tore it apart right there — that guy was Tezzus, who later became diamond*'s co-founder at ØWAY. "He paid for it, so I wasn't tripping," diamond* says. "But I still want that shirt. You owe me a Dead tee, bro."
Five years later, the two of them stood together on a runway at Paris Fashion Week. ØWAY is one of the fastest-rising crews out of Atlanta's underground rap scene this summer — the slashed "O" in the name stands for defiance against oppression. The collective grew out of an earlier group called 4ET ("4ever Thumbin'"), with diamond* and Tezzus at its core, alongside Sk8star, Pz', Yung Fazo, and outer-circle members like Southsidesilhouette, Diorvsyou, ShawtyRokk, and billiOn. In October 2025, after Young Thug blew up with the single "bada bing, bada bØØm," he signed diamond* and Tezzus to his Young Stoner Life label. The pair followed up with their joint project UY SCUTI BØYZ, and an eight-minute cypher video pulled the entire ØWAY ecosystem into the spotlight. This summer, nearly the whole crew landed on the Summer Smash lineup — in underground rap, that booking alone speaks for itself.
Weeks later, the same crew showed up in Paris. Tezzus made his runway debut at Guillermo Andrade's 424 show, Pz' walked for Louis Vuitton, and diamond* made a cameo appearance at Bazo 1199's seasonal presentation. diamond* describes those days as "ØWAY taking over Paris": "We had the finest girls, we were at every party, we basically took what we do every day in Atlanta — shopping, throwing on fits, looking good — and just moved it straight to Paris." Asked if he was nervous about walking the show, his answer was blunt: "Not at all. I've packed out way bigger rooms than that. Walking that show was just something I was already built for. Chin up, chest out, feet forward, walk with some character." Just days after getting back to the States, ØWAY announced a one-night-only show at Irving Plaza in New York, headlined by Young Thug himself, with tickets priced at $1.
On the day of the interview, diamond* was wearing his current go-to formula: a Rolling Stones graphic tee, red skinny jeans, HOOD BY AIR footwear, and an oversized Goyard bag — that day's actual fit mixed HBA shoes, Balmain pieces, and an Alexander Wang tee. Asked for styling advice, he jokes first: "Please, everybody stop wearing those extended tees with the baseball sleeves." Then adds: "Nah, I'm playing. Wear whatever the hell you want, just do your own thing the best you can, and make sure it feels like you." His references include Hedi Slimane, as well as visual artists like Basquiat and Andy Warhol. In New York, his regular rotation includes LAAMS, Luke's on the Lower East Side, and ESSX, along with digging through archive pieces at his friend @beenslackin's place, then swinging by Margiela, Gucci, and Goyard stores.
The music side of the story runs even deeper than the fashion. diamond* picked up the mic for the first time at 16, started writing in earnest around 2015, but his first official music video, "906 Freestyle," didn't drop until 2020 — a long road, as he puts it, coming years behind a lot of his peers before he ever put a face to the work. He describes his sound as "elegant, lyrical, calm, uplifting, nostalgic," pulling from hometown influences like Rich Kidz and Johnny Cinco, the Young Thug and Future he grew up on, and going back further to Sade, Erykah Badu, and Chaka Khan. Right now he's got a new project out, BLING SLIME VØL 1: HØSTED BY DJ HØLIDAY, and he's about to hit the road as a support act on Young Thug's comeback run, THE NEW GENERATION WORLD TOUR. As for that torn-up Grateful Dead tee — diamond* says he still wants it. He just doesn't need to sell shirts for a living anymore.
